Called to Serve - Sermon for the Feast of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist
September 21st, Year of Our + Lord 2025
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
Called to Serve 
Ezekiel 2:8 – 3:11, Ephesian 4:7 – 16, Matthew 9:9-13

Audio of the Sermon can be found HERE. 

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.  

  Jim was a medical doctor, who taught himself Greek, before he sold his practice, and followed Jesus’ call. 

    Dave was a machinist turned businessman, who made precision tools and parts for the manufacturing world.  His business was very successful, employing many people, and guaranteeing Dave a comfortable future.  Instead, he sold his business, and followed Jesus’ call.

    Gifford and Len were engineers, with nuclear power backgrounds, before they left their careers behind and followed Jesus’ call. 

    Another was a funeral director, to my shame I don’t remember his name.  But he left that important vocation, and followed Jesus’ call. 

    I don’t think there were any IRS agents in the 2000 Summer Greek class at Concordia Theological Seminary, Fort Wayne, Indiana.  No tax collectors.  But I was classmate to a bunch of men who left well-paying careers, or even highly valuable private businesses, to go back to school, late in life.  Not-so-young men, their brains less flexible, who now needed to learn two languages, that both require learning new alphabets.  Languages with way more tricky grammar than English.  My classmates included dozens of heads of households who sold homes and moved their families across the country, because somebody suggested they should consider becoming a pastor, they were moved to pursue it, and the seminary and their district president agreed.  Leaving success and financial security behind, they came to Fort Wayne to learn how to preach nothing but Christ, and Him crucified, to preach God’s truth, whether the hearers want to listen, or not. 

    At least, that’s what we were supposed to be thinking.  

    From the prophet Ezekiel this morning we learn that the LORD God Almighty has one basic expectation of His preachers: take the Word that I give you, and proclaim it.  Preach it, holding nothing back, to men and women who may like it, or may hate it.  Because it is by the preached Word, by the plainly spoken truth, sometimes whispered in inner rooms, sometimes shouted from the rooftops, by this preached Word alone, the Holy Spirit is building the Kingdom of God by filling it with forgiven sinners. 

    And so, when Paul wants to teach the Ephesian Christians about the gifts that God gives to His Church, we get this strange list:  First Apostles, then Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers.  Preachers, all of them.  God’s greatest gifts to His Church did not include gold, or power, or the praise and appreciation of the world.  Quite the opposite actually.  God’s best gifts to His Bride were men called and sent by God to speak the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth, for the conviction, repentance and conversion of sinners. 

    God’s strange gifts and strange Way of building His Church create challenges, for the hearers, and for the preachers.  For the hearers, it is easy to ignore, or misunderstand, or despise the preached Word.  Protect us from this, heavenly Father! 

   Christ’s teaching is often uncomfortable, and never popular with the world, nor with our sinful nature.  St. Paul, serving as a prophet, predicted the day would come when people would have itching ears, that reject the plain Word of God, desiring to have their itch scratched by a less confrontational message, (2 Timothy 4:3-4).  We live in Paul’s fulfilled prophecy.  Many contemporary ears won’t listen to the exclusive claims of Christ.  “Who are we to say that Christianity is the only way to get right with God?”  Well, we don’t say that; Jesus does.  God’s true Word proclaims: there is no other name given under heaven, by which we must be saved, except the Name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, (Acts 4:12).   

   Others, wounded by a world that constantly isolates and divides, just want Church to be their happy place.  To quote an 80s sitcom, we all want to go to a place “where everybody knows your name.”  And there is a sentimental half-truth in this itch; God did create us for community, for family, for close, loving relationship.  But merely having a place where everybody knows your name, whether in a dingy Boston bar, or in a cozy neighborhood church, can at best only put a temporary band-aid on our loneliness and feelings of pointlessness.  The solution to human loneliness comes only after God calls you out, by name, confronting your faults, the sins that sully the name your parents gave you, sins that fuel your isolation. 

   God through His Word, through His preachers, calls it like it is, revealing all that is wrong with our own names, in order to give us a New Name.  Only in and through His Son Jesus can we know, and be known, in a way that is free from guilt and lasts eternally.  And so, by His truth joined to water, by the power of His Word and the Baptisms of Jesus, God has given you a new name:  Beloved child, Christian, holy one.  All the believing baptized revel in the comfort of being clothed in an eternally good name, the name that washes away all the stains on your character and life, and makes you part of God’s family, forever.  

   The challenge for preachers is similar to the temptation we all face to treat salvation like a visit to a neighborhood watering hole.  Like Norm, waddling across the bar to get to his corner stool, everybody, including preachers, wants to be liked.  But, as we learned from Ezekiel, being liked is not on the list of the Lord’s basic requirements for His public servants.  “Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with My words to them… But the house of Israel will not listen to you, because they will not listen to Me; for all the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted… Speak to them and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,’ whether they hear, or whether they refuse,”(Ezekiel 3:4, 7, 11).

   That preachers be liked is not God’s priority.  Rather, the Lord wills they be faithful, and that they make themselves heard.  The Lord is not looking for impressive men, only for men who will hear and believe, and then follow and speak His Way. 

   St. Matthew is a prime example.  In the eyes of first-century Jewish culture, none of the Twelve
disciples was a likely candidate to be God’s spokesman: fishermen, uneducated country boys, a revolutionary zealot or two.  But it can’t get much worse than Matthew.  He was likely a bit more educated, and relatively well-off.  As a tax-collector for the Romans, Matthew was in a position to become quite wealthy.  But everybody who wasn’t personally benefitting from a tax collector tended to despise them.  Working for the enemy, and often enriching themselves in the process, tax collectors were seen as sick people, perverted in their priorities, self-excluded from the people of God.  Tax collectors were hardly the type of person the Jews would turn to for Godly wisdom and truth.  Would you call up your IRS auditor and ask them to tell you about the nature of God, or the way of salvation? 

   And yet, to show that everything that gets done in His Church is ultimately His work, done through unworthy servants, Jesus chooses Matthew.  And Matthew goes on to write His Gospel, a magisterial tome, that the Church has honored by placing it first in the New Testament writings, ever since the Church started gathering them into one volume.  Jesus showed mercy to Matthew, and became His sacrifice, the One who suffered in order to pay for all Matthew’s sins, and call him into important service to God’s mission. 

   The LORD seeks the sin-sick through the preaching of His Law, which condemns sin and sinners, and the preaching of His Gospel, through which He declares us righteous in His sight, by faith in Jesus.  Matthew clearly teaches us about the Office of the Ministry that Christ established.  He also proclaims the mystery that that God’s Good News of the rescue of sinners through the blood-bought forgiveness of Jesus includes that Gospel combined with Water, and with Bread and Wine.  Go and make disciples, baptizing and teaching.  Take eat, take drink, my Body and Blood, for the forgiveness of sins.  (Matthew 28:19, 26:26-7)  Hidden miracles, apt to be disregarded by the world.  But do not disregard them; this strange mission approach is the only Way God has revealed for sinners to be saved. 

   The warmness of the relationship between preacher and hearer is not God’s primary concern- because whether you and I are chums has no eternal consequence.  Only the Message of Christ effects that blessed miracle of grace.  

   Now, too be sure, the goal is not for the preacher to be disliked.  When pastor and people are united in their understanding, proclamation and life together that flow from the Good News of Jesus, there is often great love felt and displayed.  Through 21 years of preaching I have been disproportionately blessed.  Not universally, but most of the time I have been blessed with congregations and members who treated me kindly, better than I deserve, for the sake of the Gospel we share.  Praise be to God. 

   The blessing of a truly happy church family flows from our collective faithfulness and connection to Christ through His Word.  Our proper shared goal is that Christ be correctly and frequently proclaimed, from this public pulpit, and in our private conversations.  This is our goal, because it is God’s goal, His chosen means to deliver His gifts to sinners.  

   Which brings us to your various roles, the ways you are called to share the Word of Christ in the callings God has given you.  The readings for the feast of St. Matthew unsurprisingly focus us on the preaching office, the call to the Holy Ministry, and on those men who have been called to publicly proclaim the Gospel in the stead and by the command of the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is meet, right and salutary, for you and for me, that we have spent a few minutes reviewing the form of the ministry Christ has established, its content and its function. 

   The Bible is very clear about the problems that inevitably result when we choose to ignore God’s plan, the Way of being Church that He has ordained for us.  When we are faithful to His instruction, we can be sure that blessings will result.  God’s spoken Word does not return to Him void, without achieving the purpose for which He sent it, (Isaiah 55:11).  When the Church ignores God and insists on trying different ways that we have dreamed up ourselves, or simply aped from the world, we can expect for things to go haywire, sooner or later. 

   But public preaching is not the sum and total of God’s call to serve, in and for His Church, and in your daily lives.  Called and ordained preachers have a particular role to play, and so do all of you.  Every Christian has many contributions to make, depending on one’s various callings, and on one’s season in life. 

   You are all called to confess Christ in your daily lives, by your manner of living, and by your way of speaking.  To live unselfishly and humbly is a firm foundation for attracting people to Christ and His Church. 

   Conversely, if we Christians are seen to be harsh, greedy, mean-spirited, participating in the worst sins of the culture, then we will be an obstacle to anyone considering the faith.  But, if we are seen to care for our families, our children, our elderly parents, for everyone God has given us to love, that will speak volumes to an unbeliever, wondering about this “Christianity” thing.  Fathers and mothers are clearly called to be home-preachers to their children.  All of us are to proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness and into His marvelous light, and to be ready to give the reason for the hope that we have, with gentleness and respect.  And we are all called to pray for God’s mission daily. 

    There are concrete, earthly needs which enable us to gather here on Sunday to proclaim and praise Jesus: a warm, dry room is very helpful.  Bread and wine and musical instruments and hymnals all cost money.  We can think of many more things, and all of them require that everyone contribute, and some people lead.  Nobody has to serve the congregation in a special way all the time.  But all of us need to consider how we might support our shared ministry with our abilities, our time, and our financial blessings.  Just as Jesus on the afternoon before He was betrayed sent two disciples ahead of Him to prepare the Upper Room for the Passover, so also there are relatively mundane tasks that we are all called to share in, so that God’s Word can go forth in this place. 

   St. Matthew in His Gospel shows how our God works through the things of this fallen world, in order to rescue a people, and to have them living with Him forever in the new heavens and new earth.  Jesus uses the envy and hatred of priests, Pharisees and scribes to achieve His goal of winning forgiveness for every sinner.  A few loaves and fish are used to feed a great multitude, and to point us to a heavenly feast, and the Host of that feast, who died and rose to purchase our entry.  Earthquakes and darkened sky proclaim the world changing event of Christ’s suffering and death.  And a tax collector turned disciple and Apostle shows that the love of God in Christ can grant eternal healing to any sinner, and even put them to great use in sharing the mercy of His Kingdom. 

Let us pray:  Lord Jesus Christ, we praise and thank you for rescuing Matthew from his sin-sickness, the same soul-disease that would destroy every one of us, apart from Your merciful salvation.  In Matthew’s Gospel, You have revealed for all time the form of Your Church, her mission, and the means You have ordained for expanding Your Kingdom.  Keep our ears ever open to hear and grow in Your Holy Word.  Grant us eyes to see and hearts to pursue the opportunities for service that You set before each one of us.  Help us to see all people in the same way You saw Matthew the tax-collector, as a soul redeemed by Your blood, simply in need of hearing Your merciful Good News.  Raise up faithful pastors to preach publicly, and confident people who speak of Your merciful Gospel in their day-to-day lives.  Help us to see the many ways we are privileged to share Your mercy and participate in Your Mission and Ministry.  Most of all, as You have promised, be with us to the end of the age, until that Day when we see you face to face, with the Father and Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever, Amen.